Jacob Chow

Performing their piece “Performing Summer” by Michael Markowski, the Philharmonic four full orchestra displays their musicianship for the Westwood Community. This year, the philharmonic four will perform as the school’s varsity orchestra. “The piece is difficult, and there are many difficult chords to balance that [the band] usually doesn’t play.” french horn player Joseph Clements ’23 said. “Overall, I think we played well given the amount of time we rehearsed.”

The sounds of an intricate melody of strings and winds filled the stage as the full orchestra performed their Pre-University Interscholastic League (UIL) concert on Thursday, Feb. 29 at the Raymond E. Hartfield Performing Arts Center (PAC). The Philharmonic 4 full orchestra was able to showcase their hard work to the community.

“Overall I thought it was a good performance, and our hard work paid off,” Adaline Boyd ‘26 said. “There are places in the music we can improve on as UIL approaches though.”

The full orchestra performed pieces like Forever Summer By Michael Markowski, Saturday Night Waltz from Rodeo by Aaron Copeland, and Ludwig Van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, Movement 4. The Philharmonic 2 full orchestra was scheduled to play as well, performing Die Meistersinger by Richard Wagner, Kyiv, 2022, by Brian Balmages, and American West by Tim Shackleton but couldn’t perform due to unforeseen circumstances. 

However, another full orchestra, the Philharmonic 2, was scheduled to perform but couldn’t due to unforeseen circumstances.

“It was unfortunate, I was kind of excited to perform,” Nico Ham ‘27 said. “It was going to be our first real concert of the [school] year, but we will make up for it when we perform at UIL.”

This year, the Philharmonic 4 full orchestra will be performing as the school’s varsity orchestra and the Philharmonic 2 as the non-varsity since the Symphony full orchestra performed at TMEA as the number one orchestra in the state this year. With these successes, the standards of obtaining a “1” or “Superior rating for each group have been raised.

“It will be harder to get a one this year since the bar has been raised,” Boyd said. “But I think all of our hard work will pay off and we’ll still begin home all ones this year.”

The full orchestras will perform at the PAC on Thursday, Mar. 7 for the annual UIL full orchestra evaluation.